How to Play
campanella
Ukulele
by Jonathan Lewis
jons-ukulele.com
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Contents
Introduction
1. What is campanella?
2. Right Hand techniques and
exercises
3. Campanella scales
- Different ways to play C major
- Other Scales
4. Practice Tunes
- London Bridge is Falling Down
- Lovely Joan
- The Plains of Waterloo
- Ode to Joy
- Jon's Jig
5. More resources
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Introduction
Welcome to this short introduction to campanella ukulele. I've written it for
people (hopefully like you) who have been playing ukulele for a while but would
like perhaps to do more than just strumming chords.
People always smile when I tell them that I play ukulele, which is good
because it's a fun instrument that many associate with good times, hula girls, and
music hall entertainers like George Formby. But I'm on a mission to show the world
that beautiful – and sophisticated – music can be made on this little instrument and
I hope you'll join me. Campanella picking is for me what the makes the ukulele so
special.
You'll learn some scales and easy tunes. The scales are to help you learn the
fretboard and to show you that you'll need more than one place to play the same
notes when working out how to play tunes the campanella way. Feel free to skip
straight to the tunes if you want. I was never a good student when it came to theory
so I won't be upset!
To use this guide, you should already be able to :
• Tune your ukulele – campanella needs accurate tuning or it will sound awful!
Digital tuners are pretty cheap these days and there are plenty of free apps
for phones and tablets too (I use Pitch Lab).
• Play a few chords (just the basic, first position chords, you'll start to learn the
fretboard here).
• Read tablature. It's a lot easier than standard music notation and is better for
fingerstyle and campanella because it clearly indicates where to put your
fingers. You can find plenty of tutorials on the Internet.
• Play with your fingernails! You can play without them, but the sound is
clearer, louder and crisper (is that a word?) if you have nails. Not too long,
either, otherwise they'll be breaking all the time.
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
• Be willing to learn things for yourself through patience and perseverance. I
don't make videos where I tell you things like, “OK now take your second
finger and put it on the first string, third fret like this” and keep doing it for a
whole song. If you want to get good at an instrument, there will come a time
when your teacher can't mollycoddle you any more. Your musicianship will
develop faster if you work from the tab and decide for yourself which is the
best finger to use (left and right hand). As you will see from the scale practice
in this book there is never only one way to play campanella so be big girl or
boy and develop some autonomy. You'll thank me for this advice in years to
come.
If you are a complete beginner, please head over to ukulelehunt.com and
download the free e-book to get you started. Or consider buying Ukulele for
Dummies – it's the comprehensive guide to all things ukulele. Come back to this
guide when you can play a few songs. You'll find a list of other great resources at
the end of the book.
The tabs in this guide were made with Guitar Pro 6 – possibly the best
tab/music editor available. You might consider getting this excellent software so
you can arrange your own pieces and hear how they sound, or experiment with the
tunes here. When I'm arranging pieces in the campanella style, I often start by
simply copying the tune in standard notation into GP6 then I start looking for the
ideal fingering to transform it into campanella.
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
About Me
I've been a hobby guitarist for more than for thirty-five years and fingerstyle
was always my favourite way of playing. I'd never given any thought to ukuleles – I
considered them to be just toy guitars for kids (not knowing anything about
Hawaiian music). But when a friend asked me to tune the ukulele she had bought
for her son, I discovered this peculiar way of tuning it – re-entrant, or high-G. This
was totally fascinating to me – I quickly figured out that you could get cool harp-
like sounds by playing all of the strings one after the other. I had been using open
tunings on the guitar so I already knew the 'harping' technique used by some of my
favourite players, like Pierre Bensusan and John Renbourn but never knew just how
pretty it could sound on this miniature guitar!
Moving on a few years and I finally get myself a uke – I wanted something
small enough to take on vacation with me – and thanks to YouTube I find some
tutorials by Tim Keough – ukuleletim is his username. There I learn that this 'harp'
technique is called 'campanella', literally, 'little bell'. After reading this short book
and trying some of the exercises, I recommend you head over to his page and try
some of the arpeggio studies Tim wrote, they're fantastic! So that's me hooked on
ukulele and campanella is pretty much the only thing I do these days.
I hope you will enjoy the book and learning some tunes. Please feel free to
send me your questions and comments, and stay in touch with me via my YouTube
channel or website.
warning:
In Britain, where I come from, ukulele is usually pronounced 'yoo kuh lay lee'. I understand that
perhaps 'ookoolaylee' is a more authentic pronunciation but it doesn't sound natural with my
British accent. So don't be surprised to see the indefinite article, 'a' – “a ukulele” – and not 'an
ukulele'
Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel for more Campanella fingerpicking videos and tutorials
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
What exactly is campanella?
The word means "little bell" and that's the effect we're trying to get - when
you hear church bells, one doesn't stop ringing before the next one starts - they all
ring at the same time. The same for a harp. A harp doesn't have a neck where you
can put your fingers to change the pitch of a string, so one string, one note. So
campanella picking means avoiding playing two notes on the same string whenever
possible, taking advantage of the re-entrant tuning (where the first and fourth
strings are only one tone – two frets – apart ). Using open strings as much as you
can and alternating between strings rather than playing successive notes on the
same string really does make the uke sound like a little harp.
Arranging tunes in campanella is challenging, but ukulele re-entrant tuning
(high G) makes it possible. Most of the traditional tunes I've uploaded were first
learned on other instruments (guitar, mandolin, whistle) so the first thing I do is
figure out the tune on the uke anywhere (i.e. not campanella), then when I'm happy
that the tune is accurate, I try to look for different ways to play it avoiding playing
two notes on the same string.
Wanna hear it what it sounds like?
Play a C major scale the “normal” way, like this: (use whatever fingers you
like to pick, we'll get to right-hand techniques later.
Notice that we move up the scale in the conventional, linear way, moving up the
strings one at a time while playing two or three notes on each string. When you
change note on the same string you obviously have to stop the sound of the
previous sound. Not so with campanella.
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Now play it the campanella way. Careful, you have to go both up and down the
strings:
Sounds better, doesn't it? That's because with the exception of the first two notes,
C and D, which you can only play on the C string, you can always hear the previous
note. There is a slight dissonance, but rather than being unpleasant, it makes you
think of harps or bells – and that can be very satisfying.
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Right Hand Practice for
Campanella Picking
The most important for campanella is to get that right hand moving. If you're
only used to strumming, it's time to free up your fingers and thumb and start using
all of them (well, not so much your pinky, but all the others). If you already know
how to finger pick, you probably won't need to do these exercises, just skip to the
scales and tunes later in the book.
In guitar music, we use numbers for the left hand, (1,2,3,4) and letters for the right
hand. These come from Spanish:
P (pulgar) : Thumb
I (indice) : Index
M (medio) : Middle
A (anular) : Ring
So you will see the letters next to the note on the standard notation, like this:
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Exercise 1.
Start by placing your thumb on the fourth string (that's the one nearest your
chin), your index on the third, your middle finger on the second and your ring
finger on the first (nearest your feet), like this
Now play each string one after the other starting with your thumb (p)
Do it over and over again until it starts to feel natural. When you can do it
naturally, choose some other chords to play and practice those. Now you've a
better a way to play some of your favorite songs! Playing chords this way isn't
technically campanella, but this is how you start...
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Exercise 2
Now, perhaps more importantly, we're going to learn the alternating pattern
that you've heard millions of times in songs with acoustic guitar. The difference is
that with a high G ukulele, the thumb isn't playing a bassline, it's an essential part
of the melody. This is one reason many ukers shy away from campanella – they feel
that fingerstyle must have a melody and an accompanying bassline. But anyone
who has heard pieces by Bach for solo violin and cello will know that great music
can be made with just four strings!
It's good to be flexible with your picking – the previous exercise rigidly sticks
to a one string, one finger pattern but that's not always possible or desirable. So try
this with the same G major chord (and a F add 9):
Try doing the same thing with songs you already know. If you'd like to do even
more fingerpicking exercises, I made a video of different fingerstyle techniques
using the same chord progression. There are some classical techniques that have
nothing to do with campanella, but any practice is good practice!
paste this link in your browser if the video
won't open: http://bit.ly/2dHWYAD
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Scale Practice
1. Seven Ways to Play a C major Scale
I should say “seven ways to play the top half of a C major scale” - because the
first four notes are always played the same way. The first two, C and D, are only
possible on the third string as they are lower than all the notes possible on the
other strings. Then, to make the scale campanella we can play the E on the second
string, open then the F back on the third string, fifth fret.
By learning all the possible variations for the other notes, though, you will start to
learn the notes in all positions on the fretboard and understand better how tunes
are arranged in the campanella style. They are certainly not equal in terms of
playability, practicality or musicality (no.4 is definitely the best way) but they could
all come in handy when trying to find the best campanella fingering, so work your
way through them, up and down as shown in the video.
paste this link in your browser if the
video doesn't open:
https://youtu.be/qS3x3Ukb_v4
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
1. You will need to make a barre (cover all the strings across the second fret) for
this one.
2. A bit better, here we have a couple more open strings
3. B is moved to the second string, seventh fret
4. That's more like it – the most ear-pleasing way to play the scale!
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
5. Here we swap the positions of B and (high) C, this can be useful when the same
two notes repeat – you can avoid playing them in the same place by alternating
with the previous positions.
6. B and C move up to the 11th and 8th frets respectively. Good to have this option
sometimes.
7. The high C is on the third string. I like to play harmonics instead of fretting the
note because the uke's neck is short so fretted notes this high up have very little
sustain. Play the harmonic by touching (not pressing down) the string directly
above the 12th fret and pluck the string as you would normally with your right
hand.
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
More Scales
Paste this link into your browser if the
video won't open:
https://youtu.be/ddheQRRnTkI
A minor
A minor is the Aeolian mode of C major – it has all the same notes, just played in a
different order. When you start with the sixth note of any major scale, it becomes
minor. That's because a minor scale is identified by the third note – it's three semi-
tones (frets) higher than the root. So A major would be A B C#, and A minor is A B C,
just as in the C major scale.
For the G and A on the 12th fret, it's easier (and nicer) to play harmonics. Otherwise,
you'll have to make a barre with your little finger (pinky). Tricky, but doable with
practice. Notice too, that when descending, it's easier to play the D on the fourth
string, 10th fret rather than the first string; 5th fret.
Or you could play it like this (a bit awkward but at least you're really getting to
know the fretboard!) - you'll need to make a barre on the 7 th fret:
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
G major: high up the neck! It's a bit unnatural to jump from open strings up to the
eleventh fret, but can be very useful in campanella picking.
E minor : The relative minor of G major, starting with the open E string. Barre on
the 5th fret:
D major
B minor: relative minor of D major
This is not a complete scale but a pretty run in Bm which is reminiscent of a Celtic
harp. I've indicated the left hand fingering – notice that it's just like holding down
a chord with your little finger having to move a couple of times:
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
F major
You could change the root from second string, 1st fret to third string, 5th fret. That
would make it a little easier and maybe smoother but I still prefer the sound of the
F on the 1st fret.
D minor : relative minor of F major
G minor
this is the relative minor of B♭. I've not tabbed out the scale of B♭ because you have
the notes here! Sorry for my laziness, you could try working it out yourself. Here's a
thing though: a lot of guitarists generally hate these keys with flats because there
fingerings are usually very tiring on the left hand (loads of barre chords). But I like
arranging in F and B♭ on the ukulele – it can give a very sweet campanella sound...
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Some Tunes to Learn!
London Bridge is Falling down
Let's start with an easy tune which I
hope you already know (not sure if it's
as well-known in the States). I've put
the right-hand fingering that I use but
like I've said, it's up to you to find a
way playing that suits you best.
Paste this link if the video won't open:
https://youtu.be/t2XCu6js4EQ
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Lovely Joan
This English song is in the Dorian mode.
For each scale, there are seven modes, one
for each note. The Dorian mode is the
mode that starts (and finishes) on the
second note of the scale and is very
common in Celtic music. To get a feel for
it, try strumming the chords D minor (the
second chord in the family of C major)
then change to C major. Lots of Irish tunes
have this kind of chord change with a few embellishments here and there.
Paste this link in your browser if the video won't open:
https://youtu.be/W1YU4u-oZ5U
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
The Plains of Waterloo
You can see that I've arranged it the key of C (there are no sharp or flat signs in the
key signature). But there are plenty of F sharps and the tune starts with a G, so is it
Mixolydian mode? Not really because there are F naturals too. Then it ends with a
D, so is it Dorian mode? The guitarist Martin Simpson says that this tune shows how
sophisticated traditional music can be – musicologists would never believe that a
peasant could write a tune like this. I don't agree. I think that ordinary people can
write beautiful music exactly because they know nothing about music theory and
are thus unrestrained by rules and conventions. It's a really pretty tune, you'll see!
Paste this link in your browser if the video won't open:
https://youtu.be/X677qXkO6JQ
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
The Plains of Waterloo
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
The Plains of Waterloo (cont.)
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Ode To Joy
Try this easy classical piece,
Beethoven's Ode To Joy. To increase
sustain and maintain the campanella
voicing, we're going to play Fs on the
second string, first fret and the third
string, fifth fret, and As on the first
string, open and the second string.
This is a good piece to build up your
speed – once you've got the hang of it,
practice playing it faster and faster.
Paste this link in your browser if the video won't open:
https://youtu.be/X0utk_gAc6E
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Ode to Joy (Cont.)
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Jon's Jig
Now for something with a Celtic flavour. I wrote this tune more as an exercise more
than anything else. It gives you an idea of some of the shapes and patterns that I
regularly use. The trickiest part of this tune is in the second part when you have to
play a high C and G on the twelfth fret – I make a barre with my little finger which
is a bit awkward. You could replace these notes with open harmonics to make it a
little easier.
Copy and paste this link in your
browser if the video won't open :
https://youtu.be/qwow76Zsr6Y
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Jon's Jig (cont.)
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
Jon's Celtic Tunes Collection
35 Tunes Buy Now!
Arranged for
Campanella Fingerstyle Ukulele
Check out the tunes on my YouTube Channel
Jigs! Reels! Polkas!
The Kesh Jenny's Chickens Dennis Murphy's
Saddle the Pony The Ships are Sailing John Ryan's
The Humours of Glendart Drowsy Maggie Hornpipes!
The Blarney Pilgrim The Silver Spear Chief O'Neill's Favourite
The Mug of Brown Ale The Maid Behind the Bar The Factory Smoke
The Exile's Jig The Wind that Shakes the Barley Roxburgh Castle
The Frieze Breeches Cooley's The Silk Handkerchief
Dingle Regatta Saint Anne's Reel The Heather Glen
Morrison's Sweeney's Buttermilk
Banish Misfortune Jackie Coleman's
The Monaghan Jig O'Carolan!
Brian O'Lynn Planxty Hewlett
The Walls of Liscaroll Loftus Jones
Tripping up the Stairs Captain O'Kane
The Hag with the Money
Bonus!
American Tunes!
Arkansas Traveler
Soldier's Joy
Devil in a Haystack
Grub Springs
Brigg's Corn Shucking Jig
Genuine Negro Jig
You get:
• 2 PDFs for each tune – one with standard notation and tablature, the other with just
tablature (less paper to print!)
• MP3 slow version made in Guitar Pro 6 (no feeling, but no mistakes either!)
• Guitar Pro 6 files for you to play around with the arrangements (provided you have the
software)
Get it here
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
More Resources
John King Nalu Music
The late John King is the one person who can be credited for reviving the campanella style of
playing ukulele. He has a fantastic book of classical music (for advanced players). Read his article
on the history of the ukulele, it's fascinating.
Tim Keough (ukuleletim on YouTube)
I would never have learned about campanella if I hadn't come across Tim's channel, and for that
I'm eternally grateful. This one video converted me from someone who thought ukes were for
three-chord strummers to someone who is convinced that the uke can make music just as
beautiful as any other instrument.
Ukulele Hunt
Al Wood's site is the best place to go for tabs and chords and to discover new ukulele music.
Subscribe to the ukulelehunt newsletter for the latest updates
How to Play Campanella Ukulele jons-ukulele.com
